Should you allow your infants to cry themselves to sleep?

You shouldn't. Crying means a baby is in distress for some reason, if a parent doesn't know what that distress is. Babies need to feel secure and safe, and they won't feel secure and safe if they are allowed to remain in distress. The longer they are upset, the more upset they tend to get.

In the first three years of life a child's brain is developing connections. The baby who feels safe and secure is more likely to develop the right kind of connections than the baby who is allowed to remain in distress. When parents are responsive to their baby the baby learns that someone will at least try to make him feel better when he's upset. That contributes to the baby's sense of security and trust of the most important person/people in his life.

When parents know how to make a child feel safe, secure, and responded to the child is less likely to cry in general.

Some babies cry because they're uncomfortable, in pain, bored, hungry or just want your attention. It's the only way they know how to communicate. You'll learn to tell the difference soon enough. Our daughter would start crying when we laid her down. We'd walk back into the bedroom and she'd be quiet if we picked her up. Lay her down and she'd start crying again until we came back and picked her up. Doctor told us to let her cry as long as we were sure she wasn't in pain. After a few nights of ignoring her, she learned to go to sleep.

The question of whether to allow a baby to cry herself to sleep is a very heated one in many circles. Opponents of the "cry it out" method (also known as the "Ferber" method, after its most famous proponent) often regard it as tantamount to child... read more

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